DC ExtraTime: AYTO Meets An American Idol

BY DC CUEVA                        

■ @DC408DXTR  @ IG/YT/SC/TB

This extended Valentine's & President's holiday weekend we're now in will, this Sunday, see the premiere of the eighteenth overall season of the show that is the epitome of when up & coming singers from across this broad country of ours take the stage, perform in front of the bright lights and who can go from being no-names to big names in the span of a few months. As the granddaddy of modern-day musical talent showcases, American Idol enjoyed a glorious run of being the most-watched show on American television for nearly a decade, and like many other programs it has not only been revived after it went off the air a few years ago, it's also a reality genre that was brought to us by the folks across the pond.

(Josh Vertucci/ABC)

The Idol franchise originated in 2001 in the United Kingdom when TV producer Nigel Lythgoe saw a TV musical talent show while on holiday (British slang for "vacation") in Australia and was inspired by that show's idea of a judge panel watching singers audition in front of them. He & music exec Simon Fuller (the man behind the Spice Girls) took that idea, added voting by phone (and later, by mobile texting) by viewers, humanizing the performers in telling their backstories, and everything going on in real life to create Pop Idol. He hired a little-known but always blunt record producer & talent scout named Simon Cowell as a judge, and the program became successful first in the UK before evolving into the more successful The X Factor, and the originating show turned its attention to outside Britain (where a local version has been adopted in nearly 50 countries), including becoming big in the United States.

After a lukewarm reception in its initial pitches to the American networks, the FOX network would ultimately and reluctantly sign onto the Idol idea in the summer of 2002. It stayed true to the original British format, but tweaked the series into airing multiple nights to show as many auditions from cities across America in the season's first phase, then ensure everyone coast-to-coast could vote for their favorite performances before the results are revealed the next night -- now standard practice for reality competition shows. The combination of incredible performances and talent, the judges and the interactivity of the voting process, saw Idol become a phenomenon in its rookie year, and saw Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, Adam Lambert, Jennifer Hudson and many others become household names as did its original judges in Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul and Simon, and its host in a radio DJ by the name of Ryan Seacrest.

American Idol returns for its third season on ABC this weekend... and it's in that spirit that we'd like to tell you one small story involving an MTV Reality alum who got to meet one of its biggest alumni. A note: this does not include the two notable Idol alums who are heading towards the end of their winters in the Ex On The Beach: Peak of Love chalet of Adore Delano (aka Daniel Noriega) from the '07 & '08 seasons, or fellow alum Ryan Gallagher... but the co-subject is part of an exclusive club that only her and sixteen others are a part of.

Kelly, Carrie, Jordin Sparks, Phillip Phillips and Ruben Studdard are among the exclusive club of seventeen artists who have the title "American Idol winner" as part of their musical resumes. That also includes Fantasia Barrino, who came to its third season in 2004 having performed since she was age 5, and who boasts a good musical family tree of being cousins with '90s R&B duo K-Ci & JoJo and having uncles who performed back in the '70s. And as a high school student in her home state of North Carolina, she was pregnant at age 16 and became a mom to a now 18-year-old daughter named Zion.
   Fantasia auditioned in front of the judges and won her way to Hollywood for the second phase of performing on stage, then was chosen to go to the semifinals and ultimately into the final twelve who performed on live TV. While she sang covers of songs by Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Elton John and Gloria Estefan during the live phase, Fantasia's choice of performing a standard from Porgy & Bess called "Summertime" two times over the season that showed her greatest potential, and Simon told her that she was the best contestant Idol has ever had - America or globally. Of the 65 million votes cast on finale night (a nearly three-fold increase from 2003), Fantasia bested runner-up Diana DeGarmo by 1.3 million to become the show's youngest winner at 19.
   Fantasia's post-Idol career would see her debut single, "I Believe" debut at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 (the first Idol contestant to do so), a debut album Free Yourself become platinum & earning three Grammy nominations, and later work that would net her a Grammy in 2010 when "Bittersweet" won Best Female R&B Performance. She has also accumulated a good career in live theatre, including when she played Caelie in the Broadway adaptation of The Color Purple which saw her win a Theatre World Award (given to newcomers in the Broadway community). And those who Barrino sees as musical inspirations include Patti LaBelle, Tina Turner, Chaka Khan and the late Aretha Franklin, where she performed at the R&B great's funeral in summer 2018.

Last year, Fantasia, now surname Taylor, released her sixth studio album, Sketchbook, with its accompanying lead single "Enough." The power ballad's music video, filmed in black & white, sees Fantasia performing in front of her fans, and where it also documents a man trying to come through the back door to the concert venue where she's at, and then searching for her and eventually leaving off after watching from side stage. The "Enough" video ends with her and him dancing in the rain, but if you're feeling curious who that guy is, it's someone who was once falling in love on MTV.
   In winter 2014, Andre Sinclair was on the first season of Are You The One?, where he had a romance with Ashleigh Morghan (the one who appeared in one of Rachel Levin's Disney Princess videos on her YouTube channel), and who untangled a key love triangle that unlocked the house's successful quest for love and $1 million. But Dre had his dating life put on blast on the reunion when host Ryan Devlin brought up the TMZ report of him being secretly married to his girlfriend with kids prior to going to Hawaii -- the same girl who we saw in the exes' annual visit to the AYTO house. Dre was cast as the male lead in the "Enough" video and he wrote on his Instagram, "Want to thank @tasiasword for letting me be apart of this."

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